Monday, 1 March 2010

Election fever is gripping Britain. We will soon be summoned to choose between the sorry collection of has-beens, crooks, no-hopers, spongers, bankrupts, conmen, hangers-on, talentless minority group opportunists, fading B-list television celebrities, and geriatric dorks that pass for politicians here.

What a choice. It comes down to Gordon 'take that, you English pussies' BROWN, David 'Thatcher without the spine' CAMERON, and Nick 'who?' CLEGG. They'll all be licking babies and paying off unions until May or June when the whole ghastly business comes to a climax, as all the over-50s go and vote, and everyone else goes to the pub. And one thing is guaranteed; whoever gets elected will be as tedious as Mr. Bean: The Movie. And the sequel.

You can't even watch TV to escape. All channels will show 'Election Special' on the big night. This may sound like Asian pornography, but is in fact three wrinkly old men and a token wrinkly old lady pontificating to eternity while the results crawl in. All bloody night.

British politics used to be a lot more interesting. The '80s were the heyday of the Monster Raving Loony Party, headed up by Screaming Lord Sutch. They ran the party from a pub in Llanwrtyd Wells1, fuelled by good Welsh beer, and twiglets.

By 'heyday' I mean they almost, occasionally, got the 5% of votes needed to avoid losing their £500 deposit. But undeterred they kept coming back for more. Their policies were bonkers but strangely compelling. For example:

Traffic cops "too stupid" for normal police work to be retrained as vicars

All motorways to become massive cycle tracks

The introduction of a 99p coin to "save on change".

See? The stuff of genius. I voted for them, twice. Partly because I liked them, partly because it was a great way to choose 'none of the above'. Lord Sutch himself is no longer with us, God rest his barmy soul, but the party, although much reduced, limps on.

The Loonies weren't the only 'out there' party. Miss Whiplash led the Corrective Party. The Fancy Dress Party made a brief showing, with their signature policy of using a smaller font to automatically reduce unemployment statistics.

Alas all that has gone, suppressed by the fat sloppy swine in Westminster who protect their jobs through a series of mealy-mouthed self-preserving small-minded laws making it harder for a small independent party to stand at all, much less get elected. Thank Heavens for Europe, where we've dispensed with all this democracy nonsense, and choose our president the old-fashioned way. Behind closed doors, over a fat cigar.

1 - If you pronounce that right, it should sound like burping and sneezing simultaneously

I wish ballot papers had an option to vote for "None of the above - they're all rubbish". Then when most of the votes went to this option, political parties would be forced to rethink their policies and overhaul their memberships.

I think I remember correctly that a recentish election had a MRLP policy of 'free pasty for everyone on a Wednesday'. How can anyone vote against that? Unless you don't like pasties, in which case you can't be trusted to vote.

Hey 'Grumpy! You're right about our lame-arsed candidates. Spitting Image was only possible because of the huge political personalities in the 80s - Maggie, Ronnie, Gorby, Kinnock, Hattersley, Lawson, et al. Now we just have "famous people" with no talent. I damn near cried when Ken Livingstone finally left the scene; Bozza was no replacement. And Election Special is oriental porn? Inspired! Indigo

And that, my friend, is why I refuse to vote!I curse Emmaline Pankhurst and the rest of that bunch, and I will not vote a bunch of hooligans into office. I was just listening to The Politics Show yesterday, and they said that they didn't fight among themselves...they were just a passionate bunch! I'm not going to line the pockets of any jumped up criminal! No doubt Jeff Archer got to spend some time writing his books in prison though!

I can only repeat the advice that I gave to dear Kaz when she asked for a slogan for Labour: "We have fucked up the economy, shifted 3 light years to the right, been patronising, intrusive, authoritarian and sacrificed every principle that the Labour party stood for, we are full of corrupt, self-serving grey quasi tories, but we are still better than the Conservatives. Let's burn Thatcher!"